Where is and What are the official specs for HP g4-1387la?

Manuel Jordan

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Hello friends

I have an old laptop HP g4-2368la where through google quickly as first result is possible know its official and correct specs - it at

* HP Pavilion g4-2368la Notebook PC Product Specifications

Now, I have the opportunity to acquire the g4-1387la but I need the official and correct specs.

It mostly to buy RAM, sadly through Google does not appear its spec - among many results it indicates that theoretically it supports only 4GB of RAM but is not correct, my friend shared a Figure of System Properties showing 12GB. He told me it has - 4 original HP+ 8 "generic" - Therefore I want confirm if this laptop supports as maximum 12GB or 16GB and know the specs of the RAM to buy a new pair 2 of 6 or 2 of 8 considering if is DDR 2 or DDR3 and know the correct MHz

How to accomplish this goal?
 

Manuel Jordan

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Thank You - Not sure why does not appear the option to mark your answer as valid

And is strange, about the PDF - at "Product description " - for the Memory section at page 13, is indicated:

Supports up to 8192 GB of system RAM

But in the Figure shared by my friend - about System Properties, it has 12GB. How is it possible?
 
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Manuel Jordan

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Hello friends

I need your best recommendation about a free safe tool to install at a laptop where indicates:
  • What is maximum capacity of RAM, globally and according by each slot, the DDR type and MHz that a laptop can support?
Note: it is not about the current amount of RAM already installed and running in the laptop - I need to know the maximum capacity and features for each memory ram.

I have the following situation:

Where is and What are the official specs for HP g4-1387la?

Where the official documentation indicates 8GB and is not the same as the current information retrieved from the laptop that already have 12GB.

I want to know if I can buy 2 of 6GB or 2 of 8GB.

Thanks for your understanding
 
It depends on what the motherboard's firmware supports, but there's no real way to retrieve this information other than from the specs. Give the time period though it likely maxes out at 2x8GB.

Also there's no 6GB RAM sticks. They only sell them in powers of 2. Your laptop is a 4+8GB configuration.
 
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Rokinamerica

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The 8 GB is what was officially supported at the time of those specs. Doesn't mean more won't work, but they tested and approved 8 GB as the supported threshhold. Possible BIOS or other firmware revisions since then could have made those no longer true, but they are not going to update anything online in my opinion, for something that old.
 
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DSzymborski

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I'm a little confused by what's going on here. You say you have an old laptop and you "have an opportunity" to acquire an older laptop. How is that an opportunity? I feel like there's a longer story here that has a better resolution than "buy a 12-year-old laptop" but we're not given any parts of the story that would help us offer useful advice.
 
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Manuel Jordan

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Thanks to all for the polite replies

It depends on what the motherboard's firmware supports, but there's no real way to retrieve this information other than from the specs. Give the time period though it likely maxes out at 2x8GB.
Agree, but for example the specs for g4-2368la indicates explicitly 8GB and for g4-1387la indicates the same too. But the reality is other for the latter.

Also there's no 6GB RAM sticks
Google shows many results, this kind of capacity exists - Until yesterday I assumed this kind did not exist. I always heard about 1,2,4,8,16,32 never about 6, but it exists

The 8 GB is what was officially supported at the time of those specs. Doesn't mean more won't work, but they tested and approved 8 GB as the supported threshhold. Possible BIOS or other firmware revisions since then could have made those no longer true, but they are not going to update anything online in my opinion, for something that old.

Has sense, now would be ironic if the g4-2368la can support 16GB too.

I'm a little confused by what's going on here. You say you have an old laptop and you "have an opportunity" to acquire an older laptop. How is that an opportunity? I feel like there's a longer story here that has a better resolution than "buy a 12-year-old laptop" but we're not given any parts of the story that would help us offer useful advice.

I bought the g4-2368la to my sister and was installed Ubuntu desktop 22.04 - it works very well. And now I have the opportunity to buy this other g4-1387la too - to a friend - but I need to know what is the real maximum capacity of this model because the specs indicates 8GB but the seller shared a Figure showing 12GB - So I want to buy the correct pair for performance reasons - 2 of 6GB or 2 of 8GB.

And again - would be ironic if the g4-2368la supports really 16GB too. It from the beginning came with the 2 original HP memory RAM (2x4 = 8GB)

According to memory suppliers Crucial and MrMemory, the HP Pavilion Notebook g4-1387la ships with 4GB of removable RAM, has two slots, and a maximum total memory of 16GB.

Sounds great, pls, could you share a link to confirm explicitly that?

Extra Questions
  1. Why g4-1387la has more capacity of RAM over g4-2368la if the code of the former is lower than the latter?
  2. How to confirm if g4-2368la can support 16GB of RAM too?
Observation:

A friend is coming from USA to my country soon in the next month, so I want share the links about Amazon to buy the correct RAMs - it for the g4-1387la and if is possible g4-2368la too (if it can support 16GB) Of course, in other post is going to be requested recommendation about the RAM - so is very important do the correct buy without mistakes.

Thanks in advance for your orientation
 
Really the only way to confirm this is just to buy 2x8GB, install it, and see if it works. If it does, then congrats. If it doesn't, then return the RAM and call it a day.

Google shows many results, this kind of capacity exists - Until yesterday I assumed this kind did not exist. I always heard about 1,2,4,8,16,32 never about 6, but it exists
A cursory Google search on my end, specifically for DDR3 RAM, shows no single stick of RAM with 6GB exists. There are plenty of places that sell 6GB of RAM total, but in a mishmash of either 6x1GB, 3x2GB, 2x1GB + 2x2GB, 2+4GB, etc.
 
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Manuel Jordan

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Really the only way to confirm this is just to buy 2x8GB, install it, and see if it works. If it does, then congrats. If it doesn't, then return the RAM and call it a day.

It must be test it here, and confirm, and then do the buy to the other country.

A cursory Google search on my end, specifically for DDR3 RAM, shows no single stick of RAM with 6GB exists. There are plenty of places that sell 6GB of RAM total, but in a mishmash of either 6x1GB, 3x2GB, 2x1GB + 2x2GB, 2+4GB, etc.

Agree, I did do realize thanks to your observation

Crucial - have a look at the "Your computer's memory capability" section.
MrMemory - have a look at the "Model Specifications" section.

Huge thanks! and according with your links, the g4-2368la can support 16GB too
 
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Manuel Jordan

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You probably are aware of this but in case you are not....

the 2000 series has usb 3
the 1000 series has only usb 2 ... so file transfers to/from an external hard drive would be brutally slow.
Thanks for the feedback - I did not know that, but WS blue 2.5 SSD 1TB is included in the buy too.
 
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